Related Links

Related Stories

No injuries were reported Thursday after a First Student Inc. bus carrying Amarillo High School cheerleaders and sponsors was involved in an accident between Wichita Falls and Bowie, district officials said.

AISD Athletic Director Brad Thiessen said the bus was toting the squad on its way to cheer the AHS volleyball team at the state tournament today in Garland.

An Amarillo High School Cheer Booster Club official said the bus was hit by a car merging onto U.S. Highway 287, according to a student on the bus.

Penni Bentley, the club’s public relations director, said her daughter, AHS varsity cheerleader Chase Bentley, reported that everyone on the bus and the driver of the other vehicle involved weren’t injured.

A photo provided by Bentley showed damage to the front passenger-side of the bus, mostly mangling the stairs students use to enter and exit the bus.

Palo Duro head girls basketball coach AJ Johnson said his squad, which is playing this weekend in a tournament in Flower Mound, passed by the bus as it was being removed from the highway.

ASID spokeswoman Holly Shelton said a fire department near the accident took the students to a nearby town, where their basic needs are being met.

Chase Bentley told her mother the students, faculty members, parents and bus driver were taken to First Baptist Church in Bellevue, about 12 miles northwest of Bowie.

The church provided the students lunch, Chase told her mother, and some showered there.

Chase Bentley told her mother that the squad was told AISD is sending another bus from Amarillo to pick up them up. The squad will get the chance to cheer the Lady Sandies on in the title game Saturday after AHS beat Friendswood in the semifinals on Thursday.